PNG Olympic preparations

Tuesday, 17 January 2012

Nelson Stone and Betty Burua left Port Moresby for Brisbane last Friday morning where they joined up with the rest of the PNG relay squad members for the Brisbane Track Classic. The highlight of the meet was the relays when PNG , Fiji and New Zealand will run against hosts Australia. Stone was in the team up with John Rivan , Mowen Boino and Reginald Monagi for the 4*100m and with Rivan , Boino and Kevin Kapmatana for the 4*400m.

IOC Olympic Scholarship Holder Stone will remain in Brisbane for the duration of the Australian season as he resumes his preparations for the London Games after an extended period back in PNG. Meanwhile three time Olympian Mowen Boino will head to Canberra next week where he will base himself in a training group that includes some of Australia’s best 400m hurdlers. “ Mowen will have his work cut out to make it to the Games but intends to give it his best shot”, said Athletics PNG President Tony Green. To qualify for the Games Boino needs to run a time of 49.80 seconds which is half a second faster than the best he has ever run in his long career.”Mowen was our top performing athlete last year said Green and he deserves our full support in his quest. In Canberra he will be able to access the track and gym facilities at the Australian Institute of Sport and train under AIS coaches”.Green extended thanks to Athletics Australia and the AIS for facilitating this assistance for Mowen.

Betty Burua is another athlete who is hoping to qualify for the Games and following the completion of her university studies last month she will now concentrate full time on reaching her goal. Burua is being sponsored by Trukai and will spend the next three months on the gold coast before heading off to Southern California for a series of quality track competitions. Olympic scholarship holders Salome Dell and Toea Wisil are continuing their training in Brisbane and on the Gold Coast respectively. Wisil relocated to the Coast in November and is now training with the 2011 World number one female athlete Sally Pearson.